EDITORIAL: 343 Industries Is Ruining The Halo Franchise

Yeah, another one of Saint's crazy Halo rants... But this time, I'm taking it from the chat room to the Editorial section. Hop in your Warthog (or is it Puma?) and hit that jump to read!

Okay, so, I just recently saw the Halo: Forward Unto Dawn article here on CBM and needless to say, I had sort of a meltdown. Anybody who knows me knows the loathing and disgust I have for Call of Duty, and therefore why I have such distaste for Halo 4. I left a pretty lengthy comment on that article. It's pretty much an editorial in itself. So, some other users said it might be a good idea to actually post it as an editorial.

Basically, my point here is: 343 Industries is ruining the Halo franchise. The two games they already "developed" (Halo Anniversary and Halo 4) are abominations to the Halo franchise.

343 had ONE JOB to do with Halo Anniversary: Updated graphics and updated multiplayer... and they COULDN'T EVEN GET THAT RIGHT! The game was ALREADY MADE TEN YEARS AGO! How can you [frick] it up that much!?

I understand all the coding and stuff that has to go into a video game, there would be no way to use the original code and therefore it can'r be the same game to the T... but that's what 343 claimed they did! They made a huuuuuge deal about using "the original code" to make Halo Anniversary. If they actually had, why the [frick] are there so many glitches? And I'm not talkin the fun bugs we all used to see in Halo CE, those are still purposefully left there. I'm talkin about the gameplay-impairing bugs! Most notably: Co-op over Xbox Live. And I also understand Xbox Live was not around during the original game and there was no code in Halo CE for Live, but 343 also made a huge [frick]in deal about co-op over Live... If you're going to introduce a feature, make sure it WORKS.

And don't get me started about the damn Title Update for Halo Reach. The Title Update was designed to optimize Halo Reach's multiplayer to closer match Halo CE's multiplayer. This decision is actually a smart one, but it was not implemented successfully... It was implemented SHITILY! One of the main aspects of the TU was to remove the reticule bloom on the weapons in Anniversary gametypes, to match the experience from ten years ago... they never even implemented that feature. And, that was THE WHOLE POINT of the TU! That one feature! Also, player speed and jump height/gravity was adjusted to "match Halo CE's multiplayer movement", or, it was supposed to be. They made the players walk too fast, and increased the jump gravity, making the player fall down to the ground too quickly. Halo CE had some hangtime to their jumps, the Anniversary gametype had the opposite of CE's settings. Again, 343 had ONE [frick]ING JOB!

Yes, the HD remaster looks spectacular. Yes, the remade multiplayer maps are incredible as well... but 343 didn't even have a hand in those. 343 hired Sabre Interactive to remake the campaign from scratch in HD. Then after some fiddling, Sabre told 343 "You know, with our new engine, we can have the original game code playing underneath the HD graphics layer. And as a result of the original game playing underneath, you could switch back and forth between the original graphics and the new ones". So that great feature that all you give 343 so much credit for wasn't even a friggin thought out of their minds. And the multiplayer maps? Made by Certain Affinity. 343 can't even make their own multiplayer maps! The last 2 maps packs for Halo Reach and all the maps for Halo 4 are done by Certain Affinity! So you can't even give 343 credit for that! At a convention, someone from the audience asked 343 if they would ever make a Flood multiplayer map with tentacles flying everywhere and other Flood effects on the map during gameplay. A 343 guy said "that would be too complex and complicated to do, so I wouldn't plan on seeing it in the near future." After that, a Certain Affinity guy spoke up and said "Give us your money and we'll do it."

[frick]ing Halo 4. Where the [frick] do I start? Lets start with the obvious: Halo 4 = CoD. That's right, the Halo franchise has now come down with CoD-syndrome. When developers don't want to take risks in making a unique multiplayer experience in fear of losing customers, they do the one and only logical thing: Copy everything from CoD. I first read about CoD-syndrome in an article a while back saying 'now that 343 has taken over, we hope Halo 4 doesn't fall under CoD-syndrome', and I remember thinking to myself "They wouldn't do that, this is HALO!" ....I was so naive. 343 has taken almost every aspect from CoD and implemented it into Halo 4.

IT'S ALL [frick]ING CALL OF DUTY!!!!Dammit 343, if I wanted to play CoD, I'd buy CoD!
What is your malfunction?! Why are you so tard-assed?

Another retarded move by 343: "We're in control of the franchise now, so let's REDESIGN EVERYTHING for the [frick] of it!" Every single thing is redesigned. Why? Well, their claim for Master Chief's redesign is that it's because they wanted to make his suit more "realistic" and "practical" and "functional".

I'm sorry, but how the [frick] does bigger, blockier and bulkier equal more "practical and functional"? You'd think that'd add too much weight and too many hindrances of movement "realistically".

Now Cortana, I have no [frick]ing idea what they were thinking here. Cortana throughout Halo 1-3 was a semi-transparent holographic display. In Halo 4... she's a solid form holographic object? I just... I don't... It's not...

Again, EVERYTHING has been redesigned. For no apparent reason or explanation. And before you use that 'Well Bungie redesigned stuff too!' argument, let me just say ahead of time: you're wrong. You are. Bungie never "redesigned" anything, they only made graphical updates to accommodate the upgrades in graphical technology over the years. But they always stuck close to the original design. And 343 redesigning everything makes everything feel alienated. Imagine you've been playing the franchise for the past 11 years, staying close to a certain style and type. You've grown accustomed to this, you feel close to it, attached even. Now all of a sudden, it's ripped from under you and CoD is thrown in your face. How the [frick] would you feel about that?

The legendary Marty O'Donnell has composed some brilliant and powerful scores for Halo over the years. The Halo theme is iconic among the gaming community, regardless if you like Halo or not. Well, dear Marty works exclusively for Bungie. He will not be returning for Halo 4. Which I have no problem with, because certainly 343 isn't dumb enough to not use the Halo theme, right? ....right? -_-

"Because we will never be able to come close to Marty's legendary score, we're not even going to try to. So, we're making an all new score for Halo 4" - Frank O'Connor, Franchise Director.

Okay, on to the novels! My favorite part! have you ever read The Fall of Reach? What about First Strike? Or any of the original novels before 343 assraped the franchise? Okay, well, if you did, you need to buy the revised editions released this year... Oh, you didn't know about those? Yeah, 343 revised all the novels to make them fit in more to their universe storyline. Fall of Reach has 28 or 29 added-in pages, as well as revisions to some of the stuff you already read. So if your playing Halo 4 and see something contradicting what you had read in the past, I suggest picking up the revised editions to see how they [frick]ed you over.

"But Saint! There's a lot of ex-Bungie employees working at 343 now!"No sir, you are wrong again. Out of the entire 343 employee roster, only THREE of them previously worked at Bungie in their time.

"Okay Saint, but one of them is the franchise director, Frank O'Connor! And he's been there since the beginning oh Halo!"Wrong again, dearest. Frankie didn't join Bungie til Halo 2 was already in the middle of development.

"But he was there til 343 started making Halo!"Sorry buddy, he left Bungie after development Halo 3. So all in all, Frankie only has 3 years of time at Bungie under his belt...

"But Saint! Change is good!"Hey, I'm all for change... but do we need to change into Call of Duty?

"But Sainty! Frank O'Connor himself said Halo 4 won't be like CoD!"He did?! Well I'll be... If he said it, then that HAS to make it true!

"Saint, your forgetting that Steve Downes and Jen Taylor are returning to voice Chief and Cortana :-P"Oh, okay. That'll make the game good... just like Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart made X-Men 3 good, right?

"BUNGIE SUX! 343 4EVRRR!!11!!"Please, don't speak. You literally lower the IQ of the whole room when you do.

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